Walmart spokesperson Dianna Gee said the store was partially reopened Tuesday and all departments will be officially open again to customers at noon Wednesday.

The store had originally planned to fully reopen Tuesday after a conflagration was started in the clearance section just after midnight Monday morning, but some areas of the building took longer to restore than anticipated, Gee said.

The building's fire suppression system was able to limit the fire to one aisle in the hardware department and Three Rivers firefighters needed only minimal water to extinguish the blaze, according to the news release issued Monday.

Gee said that she couldn't speak to the woman's intent for using a notepad of paper to start the fire, but did confirm the suspect had been inside the building for "quite some time" before doing so.

While the building sustained no structural damage from the blaze, some areas did see smoke and water damage, which led to some damage products being discarded.

"In this case, all of our produce and meat pretty much was discarded," Gee said. "We always want to make sure our customers have top quality merchandise and anything that may have been damaged by smoke or water was disposed of."

Gee said it is company policy not to disclose a total dollar amount of losses in situations such as this, although a press release issued Monday by the Three Rivers Police Department estimated the damage to the store to be in the "tens of thousands" of dollars.

No employees lost wages due to the damage since those scheduled to work had their duties shifted to help with the restoration, Gee said.

"Our associates have been fantastic," the spokesperson said. "We couldn't have done what we did without them."

The suspect being sought by police is described as having blonde hair and a stocky build. She can be seen in surveillance photos wearing glasses, a dark-colored shirt with dark-horizontal stripes, shorts and flip-flops.

She was seen leaving the store's parking lot in a light-colored, full-sized pickup truck that appeared to be a late '80s or early '90s model.

Anyone with information about the fire is being asked to contact the Three Rivers Police Department at 269-278-1235.

Alex Mitchell covers county government and taxes for the Kalamazoo Gazette. Email him at amitche5@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter.